Thursday

Feb 28, 2019 at 12:45 PMFeb 28, 2019 at 8:12 PM

DAYTONA BEACH — A jury found Christian Cruz guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and felony murder for the beating, kidnapping and killing of a Deltona man who was wrongly targeted during a drug ripoff.

On Monday, that same jury will begin hearing evidence on whether to recommend that Cruz be put to death. All 12 jurors must unanimously agree Cruz deserves the death penalty for Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano to have the option of imposing it.

Cruz and Justen Charles were accused of bursting into an apartment at the Belltower Apartments in Deltona on Aug. 26, 2013, and beating and binding with speaker wire and duct tape 25-year-old Christopher Jemery. Prosecutors said they then tossed Jemery's body into the trunk of his rental car, drove him out to Sanford, carried his body to some bushes in an industrial park and shot him in the head.

Only Cruz, who lived in Deltona but has been jailed since his arrest in 2013, is on trial before Zambrano at the S. James Foxman Justice Center. Charles, 30, will be tried separately at a later date.

Cruz, 25, was indicted on charges of first-degree premeditated murder, burglary while armed, robbery with a firearm and kidnapping. A jury of six women and six men began hearing testimony on Monday and deliberated for about 3½ hours Thursday before returning the guilty verdicts. Cruz faces the possible death sentence on the charges of first-degree premeditated murder or first-degree felony murder.

Cruz stood still and showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. But Jemery's mother softly cried as other family members put their arms around her and consoled her.

[READ MORE: Men kidnapped and killed wrong man when they tried to rob drug-dealer in Deltona, prosecutors said.]

[READ MORE: Suspects arrested in Deltona man's killing.]

Prosecutors said Cruz and Charles targeted Jemery's apartment because a small-time drug dealer named Mark Walters had lived there, but the dealer had moved out. The pair had bought marijuana from Walters before.

Walters was friends with Jemery and had allowed Jemery, who had recently moved from New Hampshire, to stay in the apartment until he got settled. Jemery had a girlfriend and the couple had a daughter and were planning to marry. But he had asked her not to stay at the apartment because he felt the area was not safe.

When Cruz and Charles burst in they found Jemery instead of Walters but that didn't matter, prosecutors said. Cruz and Charles are accused of throwing Jemery's bound and gagged body into the trunk of his rented Nissan. Then they drove to an industrial park in Sanford where they dragged him into some woods off a parking lot. Then Cruz and Charles are accused of shooting Jemery in the head with a .22-caliber pistol.

Assistant State Attorney Tammy Jacques, who is prosecuting the case along with Ryan Will, led jurors through the evidence in her closing, showing them pictures of shoe prints left in the blood on the apartment's floor. She said those prints matched sneakers from Cruz and Charles.

She showed jurors a picture of an unfired .22-caliber Federal brand bullet found in the apartment. And she showed them a spent shell casing that was discovered near where the fatally wounded Jemery was found.

She also reminded them that evidence showed that Cruz's DNA was found in the passenger side of Jemery's rented Nissan. And she said Charles' DNA was found on the steering wheel and gear shifter.

Jacques also showed them a picture of a strip of duct tape paramedics removed from Jemery. That duct tape had Cruz's thumb print on it, Jacques said.

Cruz is represented by the father-and-son legal team of Clyde Taylor Jr. and Clyde Taylor III. The father, Taylor Jr., handled the closing, eliciting some smiles from jurors when he said he wasn't going to use the overhead projector because he was more of a paper person.

Taylor Jr. referred jurors to the movie "Forrest Gump," reminded jurors that the main character fought in Vietnam and always obeyed his commanding officer, Lt. Dan.

Taylor said that in that manner, Cruz looked up to and obeyed Charles. Taylor said Charles was 6-feet 1-inches tall and older than Cruz, who was 19 at the time of the killing. He said Charles was a hothead and a known fighter.

Taylor asked jurors to consider who would be more likely to be carrying the gun in such a situation: the 19-year-old or the older, larger more experienced man.

He also said that the drug-dealer who used to live in the apartment, along with his girlfriend, still had keys to the unit and still had some of his possessions there.

In her rebuttal, Jacques said there was no evidence that Charles was a hothead and it was immaterial whether the former resident still had keys to the unit.

Jacques said the killing happened between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. and those times bookend when Cruz and Charles left a friend's apartment, and when Cruz was captured on video withdrawing $440 from Jemery's bank account at an ATM in Casselberry.

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